Seahawks Preview: Another Revolution is Coming

When Percy Harvin hits the field (eventually), Seattle's read-option just might become unstoppable. And with that defense, how could they not be contenders?

The Seahawks right now are as trendy as the city they hail from. Just about every offseason NFL power poll ranked them No. 1. Fantasy owners laud their young stars. Vegas has them among the favorites to win Super Bowl XLVIII.

Coach Pete Carroll and general manager John Schneider, who partner in making personnel decisions, seem to share everyone’s high expectations. Schneider has a gift for seeing the benefits of a player’s strengths. Carroll and his staff have a gift for accentuating those strengths. Together they’ve built an offense around a third-round pick who has all the physical and mental skills but was supposedly too small to play quarterback. And they’ve built a defense around a fifth-round pick and an undrafted ex-Canadian Leaguer who were uncommonly strong but supposedly too big and stiff to play cornerback.

Now, four years into the Carroll/Schneider plan and fresh off an impressive divisional round playoff appearance, this young, deep and talented team’s window of opportunity is widening. Schneider and Carroll spent the offseason making emphatic over-the-final-hump moves. Taking advantage of a soft free-agent market, they signed defensive ends Cliff Avril and Michael Bennett and nickelback Antoine Winfield at bargain prices. Tacitly acknowledging the weakness of this year’s draft class, they shipped their first-round pick to Minnesota for wide receiver Percy Harvin. Though Harvin will begin the season on the PUP list, recovering from hip surgery, this is still a huge trade, at least theoretically. Harvin has the potential to revolutionize not just this offense, but offense in general. We’ll get to how and why shortly, but let’s first examine the defense that has the whole league talking.

DEFENSE

Richard Sherman far right (Elaine Thompson/AP)

The common belief is that cornerbacks Richard Sherman and Brandon Browner are what make Seattle’s defense work. The common belief is correct. Throughout his career Pete Carroll has run some variation of a zone-based 4-3. Here, he runs a 4-3 man-zone hybrid. His original defensive coordinator in Seattle, Gus Bradley, believed in taking away the offense’s lanes along the boundaries. Bradley’s thinking was that by eliminating the outside and narrowing the field, you give the offense less space to operate and the defenders less to worry about. This makes for a more predictable offense and a more aggressive defense.

Bradley earned the head coaching job in Jacksonville this offseason, but new coordinator Dan Quinn, who had been the defensive line coach, will continue the same general approach. With Sherman and Browner stifling the outsides, Quinn has the extremely rare luxury of scheming to defend a narrowed field with nine players. Having the league’s fastest safety, Earl Thomas, patrolling the middle will allow Quinn to call single high coverage nearly every snap. That means hard-hitting strong safety Kam Chancellor can be a true rover, giving this defense unique freedom for aggression and disguise.

Under Bradley, the Seahawks almost always ran a basic combination of 4-3 under and over fronts with a single-high look on the back end. But five or six times a game, usually in critical third-and-long situations, they would get very creative with amoeba sub-package looks and blitzes. Quinn wants to expand on these and perhaps even integrate some of their concepts into the base 4-3 and nickel. New slot corner Antoine Winfield will figure prominently in this.

The Winfield acquisition solved a lot of problems. Great as Sherman and Browner are, neither is comfortable playing inside. More and more, offenses were compelling one of them to play inside by aligning both receivers to the same side in base personnel sets (this is called a “slot formation”). Winfield is a slot defending maestro and one of the best tackling corners of all-time. With him around, the Seahawks now have the option of defending these sets with their nickel packages. This will be an easy way for Quinn to increase the frequency of Seattle’s more creative looks.

Quinn might be forced to play more nickel anyway, as offenses now realize that the best way to attack this field-narrowing D is to spread out and look for mismatches away from Sherman and Browner. This is why, unless oft-injured Walter Thurmond can somehow regain his 2010 rookie form, it’s vital that 36-year-old Winfield stay healthy (he has missed at least six games due to injury every other year since 2007). And it’s important that last year’s good-looking sixth-round pick, Jeremy Lane, continue to develop. The Seahawks may also have to count on young reserve safety Jeron Johnson, who brought good speed to the dime blitz packages last year, a tad more in coverage.

The Sherman-Browner factor is not the only inspiration offenses have for spreading out against Seattle. Many offenses struggle to run against this stingy front seven—especially when there’s a safety always available to drop in the box. The Seahawks last season faced the second fewest rushing attempts in the league.

Red Bryant (Charles Rex Arbogast/AP)

It starts with a stout front four. Defensive end Red Bryant is 6-4 and 320-something pounds of immovable girth. In most schemes he’d be a tackle, but Seattle likes to use him as a two-gap anchor on the strongside edge. If Bryant struggles with injury and performance like he did last season, the Seahawks will likely try newcomer Michael Bennett in his spot. Bennett weighs only 274 pounds, but in a similar scheme with the Bucs he consistently used his lateral quickness to make plays in traffic from the outside. If the mild shoulder problems that have recently bothered Bennett worsen, 2012 seventh-rounder Greg Scruggs will get more action.

Inside, underrated nose-shade tackle Brandon Mebane has a relentless motor and a natural sense for leverage. He’s a respectable penetrator and extremely disruptive east-west run-clogger. At the three-technique, departed free agent Alan Branch’s size and surprising suddenness were huge assets against the run. The Seahawks believe former Dolphin Tony McDaniel or last year’s fourth-rounder, Jaye Howard, can fill Branch’s shoes. To hedge these bets, they used a third-round pick on Jordan Hill and a fifth-rounder on Jesse Williams, who played multiple positions along Alabama’s three-man line. Williams somehow fell to the fifth round even though some esteemed talent evaluators said they saw little difference between him and mid-first-round pick Star Lotulelei.

At the weak defensive end spot will be Cliff Avril, though he could ultimately share some of his first and second down snaps with Chris Clemons if the incumbent veteran bounces back from his January ACL injury. Either way, the Seahawks will have a speedy, sinewy athlete here. Also taking some snaps in this spot on passing downs will be 2012 first-rounder Bruce Irvin (after he serves his four-game PED suspension). Critics originally said it was imprudent to spend the 15th overall pick on a situational player like Irvin. But in today’s NFL everything is situational. Last season Irvin played 48% of the snaps, many of which were third downs or other critical moments. Able to stay fresh, he recorded eight sacks and wrecked numerous other plays with his explosive speed-rush and unexpectedly forceful bull-rush. This offseason Irvin has gotten reps at outside linebacker, where he figures to headline most of Quinn’s expanded hybrid concepts. So far, he is more than delivering fair value for Pick 15.

It seems almost unfair that sandwiched between the league’s best secondary and one of its best front lines is a very smart, athletic young linebacking corps. Mike backer Bobby Wagner got better each week as a second-round rookie last season. He is sharp in keying and diagnosing against the run, but more importantly, he’s athletic and able to identify shallow route concepts as a zone defender. Flanking Wagner on the strong side is K.J. Wright, who can cover most tight ends. On the weak side, replacing veteran Leroy Hill will be Malcolm Smith, who did a solid job attacking in traffic when he filled in as a starter last season. If Smith struggles with a full-time load, the Seahawks can turn to longtime special teamer Heath Farwell or recently added ex-Cardinal O’Brien Schofield.

OFFENSE

Pete Carroll and Percy Harvin (Elaine Thompson/AP)

A revolution is coming. Percy Harvin’s unexpected hip surgery has put it on hold for presumably at least the first half of the season. But still, it’s coming. Schneider and Carroll would not give up a first-round pick and $25.5 million in guaranteed money for a player with Harvin’s history of health and attitude problems if they didn’t believe they were getting something extraordinary in return. Some might characterize Harvin, who was leading the league with 62 receptions when he went down with an ankle injury midway through last season, as the true No. 1 receiver that Seattle’s offense was missing. But that’s not what he’s here to be.

A true No. 1 receiver runs downfield routes and commands double-teams over the top. Harvin will operate predominantly within 10 yards of the line of scrimmage. And he’ll do his greatest damage at or behind the line of scrimmage. More and more, the focus of NFL offense is on getting the ball to weapons in space. Harvin, with his tremendous acceleration and surprising strength when quickly changing directions, is the ultimate weapon in space.

Seahawks offensive coordinator Darrell Bevell has already laid the perfect schematic foundation for integrating Harvin. At the beginning of last season, Bevell was not quite sure what he had in Russell Wilson. So, early on, he kept his schemes simple and measured, using a lot of two-back and two-tight end sets. This kept defenses in vanilla base looks for Wilson. Whatever downfield shots the quarterback took were off defined reads and controlled, designed pocket movement. In fact, the Seahawks used play-action on an extraordinary 35% of their snaps. That was the second most in the league and second most since Football Outsiders started charting the stat in 2005. (The Redskins last year used it 42% of the time.)

Russell Wilson (Ted S. Warren/AP)

Wilson improved exponentially over the course of his rookie season. He showed great touch on elevated seam passes and deep balls. He almost never forced tight throws. Unable to see over his linemen, he moved around a lot in the pocket but rarely got frenetic. Though mobile and accurate throwing on the move, he resisted the temptation to rely on his legs, running only when his reads demanded it. As a runner, he never subjected himself to big hits.

As Wilson progressed, so did the sophistication of Bevell’s game plans. The Seahawks eventually went to more three-receiver sets and used finer-crafted route combinations. But having a tenacious, highly skilled traditional running back like Marshawn Lynch, along with a decent fullback in Michael Robinson, Bevell could see that his team was at its best when working off the ground game. He came up with a marvelous way to lean on the run and still take advantage of his rapidly improving quarterback’s skills: read-option looks. Wilson had threatening mobility, and Seattle already had a zone-blocking front line. The Seahawks started doing more read-option concepts around late November, and it gave defenses fits.

This is where the revolution begins. Harvin will be a significant weapon on wide receiver screens, reverses and probably even some backfield carries and swing passes. But what makes him a truly worthy investment is the new wrinkle he can bring to Seattle’s read-option. Defenses already have enough trouble identifying and staying disciplined in their assignments against static read-options. Imagine if that equation were to include pre-snap motion from a dynamic force like Harvin. Or what about post-snap motion? Imagine Wilson faking to Lynch, rolling out and still having an option to pitch back or fling the ball forward to Harvin. Or, imagine Lynch getting the ball but Harvin screaming behind him from the other direction for a possible reverse. There are myriad possibilities for paralyzing defenders. This is the next phase of football’s evolution. It’s not just the read-option, but the broader concept of multiple challenges to defenses: lining up multiple players who are multidimensional and capable of simultaneously going in multiple directions.

Marshawn Lynch (Todd Kirkland/Icon SMI)

This would be a radical new approach to offense, but the Seahawks aren’t at the mercy of it working—which is why they’re equipped to survive Harvin’s absence just fine. They have enough resources outside of Harvin to still function, maybe even thrive, in a more traditional approach. Lynch is the best tone-setting ballcarrier in football after Adrian Peterson. Supporting him is 2012 fourth-rounder Robert Turbin, who has shown some upside as a thicker-bodied third-down back. There’s also second-round rookie Christine Michael, a compact, straight-line thumper who was brought in partly because it was apparent late last season that Lynch needs a slightly lighter load.

In the passing game, Seattle lacks elite straight-line speed, though the Seahawks were very successful going downfield last season thanks to Wilson’s touch and Bevell’s ability to get players open by design. Sidney Rice is the beneficiary of most scheme-created mismatches. Golden Tate has leveraged his shifty quickness into a respectable catch-and-run role, while Doug Baldwin generally capitalizes on his opportunities out of the slot. Needing to add more size on the outside, the Seahawks also drafted 234-pound Chris Harper in the fourth round.

In the fifth-round, Schneider and Carroll thought they were buttressing their tight end depth when they selected Luke Wilson. But a season-ending Achilles injury to Anthony McCoy (arguably the club’s most improved player in 2012) means Wilson now may assume the No. 2 tight end duties behind the fundamentally sound and moderately flexible (though not particularly dynamic) Zach Miller. Also in the mix is undrafted second-year pro Sean McGrath.

Tasked with maintaining smooth sailing for these skill players is a front five that’s extremely athletic in the two most important positions, and just good enough at the other three spots. First, the athletes. There aren’t many left tackles as physically gifted as Russell Okung. Last season the 2011 sixth overall pick stayed truly healthy for the first time in his career and earned a trip to the Pro Bowl. Okung has great natural power as both a run- and pass-blocker. The other athlete is center Max Unger. His mobility is critical to the collective movement of Seattle’s zone blocks, though it’s his improved strength that allows his crafty angles to stalemate nose tackles.

Filling the guards spots are James Carpenter and Paul McQuistan, though J.R. Sweezy and John Moffitt could both challenge for playing time. Carpenter and Moffitt are the most physically gifted, but they’ve also been the most susceptible to injuries. At right tackle is Breno Giacomini (pronounced Jah-coe-mee-nee, which is fun to say once you get the hang of it). He is a classic play-to-the-whistle fighter. The only concern is his susceptibility to penalties and bull-rushes.

SPECIAL TEAMS

Kicker Steven Hauschka was 23/23 on field-goal attempts under 50 yards last season and 1/4 from 50-plus. Punter Jon Ryan had just three touchbacks on 65 punts and left 30 of those punts inside the 20 (fourth best rate in the league). In the return game, Percy Harvin is too electrifying on kickoffs to not use once he gets back. He took at least one kick to the house in each of his four seasons with the Vikings. On punt returns, Golden Tate would make sense.

BOTTOM LINE

The Super Bowl hype makes sense, but getting there won’t be easy. This team is still young at quarterback and will be counting on players to step up in the modernized passing game. There could be some growing pains.

There is only one truth regarding the Seahawks: They, like the Patriots, cannot win without cheating AND getting help from the refs. Until they admit that Tate pushed off and that it was a pick, they will be nothing more than opportunistic cheaters.

In 2012, Russell Wilson worked his way outside the pocket to throw on 119 plays - he completed 65 passes on 105 attempts, a 61.9% clip. On those plays, he threw for 814 yards with 7.8 YPA, with 5 TD to 2 INT. His NFL rating on those 'outside the pocket' plays was 93.9 and his Total QBR was 73.4.

On plays in which he dropped back and stayed inside the pocket, he completed 187 of 288 passes, a 64.9% completion percentage, for 2,304 yards, 8.0 YPA (!!!) and 21 TD to 8 INT. He was sacked 24 times (a number that, in my mind, will almost surely go down in 2013 as the line improves and Wilson better recognizes defenses and sets protections). HIs NFL Rating inside the pocket was a cool 102.3 and his Total QBR was 73.5 - nearly identical to his numbers outside the pocket.

Needless to say, I'm excited by what the Seahawks have the potential for this year. They have some great pieces, and I was wholly encouraged by their defensive depth in the pre-season opener.

I don't read too much into the offensive stumbles in the first quarter. They weren't pretty, but I thought it was clear that there was no need to try to force the issue with Wilson. Lynch wasn't running, and so many people overlook that. The o-line had 2 rookies in place of pro-bowl starters. The 1st string receiving core was dominantly 2nd string, and the Hawks were certainly trying to ascertain what chemistry was building between QB and young WRs in Harvin's absense.

The place where I see the most concern in on the starting defensive line. I know that the Chargers didn't come out vanilla, and instead are building to elevate Rivers as an elite QB (the guy is good). But the run D looked sloppy. Those players will get a lot of great film to review, but it smacked of a new line that wasn't in sync. The end of last year showed that when opposing offenses were able to punch through the line once the stigma of our stout run D wore thin.

I expect this to get better, and again, it's the first pre-season game with a new defensive coordinator, and a few new starters. But I'll be looking to see improvement in this area come Saturday against the Broncos.

Wilson, when he runs, rolls to his right on the majority of his roll-outs. He also does that even when finding his passing lanes. This will be observed and I expect an unbalanced pressure from opposing defenses there to punish that. I think the primary benefit of having Harvin is as this article says - giving Wilson another behind-the-line option creates nightmares. If you don't gang-tackle Lynch, he runs over LBs. If you've got the manpower to gang-tackle Lynch, Harvin is acting as the scariest 'check-down" throw in the line of scrimmage. If you're covering both...Wilson is taking a stroll to the sideline, or waiting to see if Baldwin, Miller, Tate or Rice have opened in about that order for the read progression.

You need two guys on the D-line to channel Lynch, one additional for his lead blocker (if any).

You need a spy on Wilson and good cap coverage and discipline to make sure the handoff to Lynch occurs.

You need two guys working the same level and a spy on Harvin to cut off his angles in space. This can be the same guy spying on Wilson, but the spy will usually be on the second level of the defense and is effectively starting two steps late on every play.

So that's 2+1+(1)+2 = 6 of the defenders accounted for just for 3 offensive players and a lead back.

That leaves 5 defenders covering the TE and 3 WRs, each of whom has a zone on the field and has to keep an eye peeled for Harvin breaking past the LBs.

I think WInfield is likely to lose games due to injury - I expect the 'Hawks to have more injuries this year than last, where they got incredibly fortunate, and I can't imagine Winfield playing all 16 games plus the playoffs at 36, and as the world's only 181 lb linebacker.

Seattle's defense has a big drop-off in quality late in games; they get fatigued/winded/tired late in games and it shows. This usually isn't a problem if Seattle is protecting a lead by running Lynch/Turbin down someone's throat, but it showed up in Chicago and Atlanta when the offense needed to score fast, and the defense couldn't recover their wind.

Remember, it was the much vaunted Seattle D that gave up two 20+ yard passes for Matt Ryan with 21 seconds to go...no pass rush, leaning heavily on the secondary to take away the long route, but leaving it up largely to LBs in coverage spread off the line. I think the big story of the upcoming season is likely to be Seattle working on the coverage drills of their LB corps.

I am also intrigued by Harper, who's sort of a 'tweener between wideout and weak side LB; his job is to make sure that any safety who tangles with him over the middle feel like they hit a brick wall. His contributing factor will be, much like a running back, to wear the defense down while being a credible threat to catch things over the middle, or on the inner-curving branch of a crossing tee route. Expect him to do coverage routes in the "reverse" direction (running QB's strong side to weak side) so an early progression throw...and after he's clear of his part of the receiver threat window of the play, his job is to throw blocks for Lynch or Harvin in the LB layer of the defense. Never seen a WR that liked contact that much...

Zack Miller having the most receptions and receiving yards in the post season last year suggests he may be the most under rated veteran in this article, which really only underscores the potential strength of this years revolutionary Seahawk team.

Wow - was this written by someone on Seahawks PR staff? Hadn't seen such fawning in any of the other camp pieces. I predict massive underachievement, much more difficult with the bullseye on you every week. "Impressive divisional round playoff appearance" - yikes. Benoit - terrible job, maybe try to keep it a bit more objective.

Russel Wilson is an amazing quarter back and be the corner stone of this franchise for years to come. Seattle over payed for Harvin who is a great player but cannot stay on the field. Not only is health a concern he has been a malcontent on every level of play. Harvin is best used as a piece of the puzzle but not the corner stone. I hope Harvin can fulfill his promise and stay healthy. The article was a preview for the 2013 Seahawks not a referendum on steriod abuse. Seattle's players have blemished the league recently and the NFL needs to come down with serious suspensions for future offenders. The arrogance displayed by Richard Sherman after his acquittal by a technicality is worth addressing in my opinion. The NFL isn't trying to destroy careers by suspending the athletes for their own actions.

@GeorgiaHawk That's the thing Seattle fans (in all sports) gotta realize, you guys are convinced other fans are just obsessed with the Seahawks when in truth about 99% don't give a s---t and the other 1% are 49er or Rams fans who spend other seasons as Packer or Patriot fans.

@ken.burnside Nice assessment. In no small part that lack of a pass rush against the Falcons was due in part to Chris Clemons and his injury from the week before. Either way, you hit the nail on the head. A lack of a pass rush those last seconds cost them.

@msandberg0202 Sherman's whole spiel is an act. If you're a corner, there's really only two ways to be known by the public. Be loud or the be the very best. Deion was the first to latch onto the loud part but was also the best. Sherman is good but he's clearly on the louder side.

@Matthew10 Jealous? Of what? Of Tate being shown the video and him flatly denying the evidence that he pushed off? Of the referees admitting they made a mistake, yet Goodell continued to do anything about it?

And that one call could have been the difference between making the playoffs and going home. In fact, it was the difference between a first round bye and having to play wild-card weekend. Football is a game of inches, and one play can make the biggest difference. In fact, that one play pretty much forced the league to bring back the real referees the very next week.

And it wasn't a fluke play - it was an outright horrible call. The Packers got jobbed by the refs on that call. Granted, it should have never come down to that; the Packers had plenty of chances to put more points on the board throughout the game. So yes, they deserve some blame for not getting more points. But the call was an absolute travesty.

And that wasn't the only bad call on that drive. Shields was interfered with multiple times on that drive, and yet he was the one called for interference. And what about the pick that was reversed thanks to the phantom roughing call?

It wasn't one call or one fluke play. The Seahawks got help from the refs, and it almost cost the Packers their season. And you Seahawks fans are the only ones who refuse to see it.

For someone that claims He/She don't give a s---- Why do you waste your time on a Seahawk Article? Go spend your time elsewhere because Seahawk fans could care less what others think. Go back to the basement of your mothers house and stuff your hole-(I mean troll) with Cheetos. Lol.

@ColinProctor Neither is the Super Bowl, but you Seahawks fans continue to use that to whine. And to be fair - I whole-heartedly agree that the ball never broke the plane, with Big Ben falling well short. But that's not the point of this topic, is it?

Plain and simple, the Seahawks are a lousy team. They refuse to acknowledge what happened, with their coach, QB, and WR all saying the play was clean, and their fans saying the same thing. Own up to what happened and I may change my tune. But I doubt you guys can do that.

@mystafugee@GeorgiaHawk Didn't see GeorgiaHawk say anything about "only" posting on Seahawks topics. But I do see that you are very anxious and worked up about a player on a team you claim nobody cares about...an odd combination of things, don't you think? Also, who does or doesn't care about the Seahawks is about the last thing I'm interested in. Fine, they're the darlings of the NFL this year, but in a few years they'll be back to their usual status -- I'm really not bothered either way.

@mystafugee@ArchieStewart@GasolineSnuggie — "In January 2006, Texas A&M filed suit against the Seattle Seahawks to protect the trademark and in May 2006, the dispute was settled out of court. In the agreement, Texas A&M licensed the Seahawks to continue using the phrase "12th Man" in exchange for financial compensation along with public acknowledgement by the NFL franchise as to Texas A&M's ownership of the phrase.[20]"

If you want to be a decent troll at least do your research. That took all of ten seconds on Wikipedia.

@ArchieStewart@mystafugee@GasolineSnuggie It's 12th Fan, not 12 Man, that's Texas A&M. As for respect, what have the Seahawks done that merits admiration? Frankly, they didn't win anything tangible last season? Not even a division title.